Very valuable observations from Paul on his travels, talking to developers and business people about progressive web apps—there’s some confusion out there.

My personal feeling is that everyone is really hung up on the A in PWA: ‘App’. It’s the success and failure of the branding of the concept; ‘App’ is in the name, ‘App’ is in the conscious of many users and businesses and so the associations are quite clear.

Instead of choosing between the immediacy of a mobile website and the rich experience offered by native apps, you can now offer your target audiences the best of both and improve the commercial performance of your business to boot.

Here’s a really quick (ten minute) talk about the offline user experience that I gave at the Delta V conference recently. I’m quite happy with how it turned out—there’s something to be said for having a short and snappy time slot.

There’s a common misconception that making a Progressive Web App means creating a Single Page App with an app-shell architecture. But the truth is that literally any website can benefit from the performance boost that results from the combination of HTTPS + Service Worker + Web App Manifest.

A progressive web app is an enhanced version of a Single Page App (SPA) with a native app feel.

To quote from The Last Jedi, “Impressive. Everything you just said in that sentence is wrong.”

But once you get over that bit of misinformation at the start, the rest of this article is a good run-down of planning and building a progressive web app using one possible architectural choice—the app shell model. Other choices are available.

Sara describes the process of turning her site into a progressive web app, and has some very kind words to say about my new book:

Jeremy covers literally everything you need to know to write and install your first Service Worker, tweak it to your site’s needs, and then write the Web App Manifest file to complete the offline experience, all in a ridiculously easy to follow style. It doesn’t matter if you’re a designer, a junior developer or an experienced engineer — this book is perfect for anyone who wants to learn about Service Workers and take their Web application to a whole new level.

Too, too kind!

I highly recommend it. I read the book over the course of two days, but it can easily be read in half a day. And as someone who rarely ever reads a book cover to cover (I tend to quit halfway through most books), this says a lot about how good it is.

In the case of this web-app, if the tablets go offline, they will still store all the transactions that are made by customers. Once the tablet comes back online, it will sync it back up to the server. That is, essentially, what a Progressive Web App is — a kind of a website with a few more security and, most importantly, offline features.